


Dreams of the Dead

by disparity



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Renegade Commander Shepard, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 01:43:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6218656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disparity/pseuds/disparity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before the jump through the Omega 4 relay, Thane asks Shepard if the dead dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams of the Dead

“Did you dream?”

His words are inevitable. Somehow, from the moment they began this thing of coiling limbs and tongues, she knew he'd say them. For just a second in a sea of stolen months, it feels like déjà vu, and it makes the stars above her spin, or maybe that's the wine.

There have been several of these moments since she died. She could've dismissed them as drunken oddities, because the universe has always seemed strangely meaningful when she crosses the blurry barrier of tipsy, but the first time? She was completely sober (not by choice, and fuck the Illusive Douche for giving her that knowing look when she asked if there was time for a drink before Freedom's Progress, his smugness translating perfectly through hologram—she would've asked how the hell he managed that except she didn't feed wild animals, and his ego had fangs.)

She was in a shuttle flying away from some Cerberus station or outpost or whatever-the-fuck in the middle of a galaxy whose name she probably memorized in technical training all those years ago, going faster than light towards a future she shouldn't even have. As if she didn't have enough problems, she had to listen to the puppeteer's favorite seamstress ask her question after question about the hero that used to be, the one that died and got stitched back up without anyone ever stopping to ask, “Hey, Shepard, mind if we reanimate the sack of meat that used to be you?” (Maybe they did ask. Fuck, she really hates the idea of them talking to her corpse.)

It was this thing Miranda said when the white knight Shepard never asked for and never fucking wanted jumped in to rescue her from the endless barrage of questions. (And then looked at her like she'd be grateful. She tried to melt him with her glare, but Miranda _for the last time, Shepard_ did not give her superpowers.) And Miranda said something about putting all this work into Shepard, about making sure that Shepard was a true restoration, not just a ghost.

Miranda's voice was always cool and disinterested, but just then, it was naked like Shepard after they pulled her out of her frozen suit but before they shoved all the tubes in. Shepard felt this _thing_ hit her in the chest, and it wasn't until it happened the second time (maybe the third—does it count if she was drunk off her ass and doesn't really remember?) that she decided to call it déjà vu, even if that isn't really the right way to describe it.

She didn't know what it was, still doesn't, but it made her feel like she _knew_ Miranda. It was like hearing the words a second time, not because she'd really heard them come out of Miranda's smug mouth (forever pursed in disapproval or amusement but Shepard could never tell which), but more like she already knew they were Miranda's words, like they somehow belonged to her before she ever said them.

Shepard feels the same thing hit her in the chest, something a bit like that prickle on the back of her neck during battle but less sharp, when Thane asks her if she had dreams while she was dead. She has to think for a minute, pluck out memories at random and inspect their wavy edges before letting them sink back down into the universe that exists in her mind, before she determines that he hasn't said them before.

(Probably not. Shepard doesn't work in absolutes, even when it doesn't matter. Certainty is too much like a promise, and she doesn't make those anymore.)

She rolls her eyes up at him, peering through her lashes, head moving gently up and down with his breath. He's looking at the stars, and even though she'll deny it 'til the Reapers bring Christmas, she loves him like this. When he gets too lost in memories or just thoughts to remember that humans have faces like books, and if he read hers right now he'd see it was made of pictures because her words aren't worth shit, never have been, and everyone knows it.

Shepard never has the right answers to anybody's questions (except the Alliance, because they already gave her all the answers, and every one of them is _'Yes, sir'_ ), but the thing about Thane is he has a different rulebook than everyone else, and somehow all her stupid words mean something to him, even when he's sober. It's like no one ever told him there are things you aren't supposed to say, or maybe drell just say everything. Maybe drell have that kind of thing that's only ever been a dumb pipe dream for humanity, where people just don't judge you for saying stupid shit all the time.

There aren't very many times in her life where Shepard's said the right thing and it all worked out and nobody died, but those are the moments she clings to like the edge of the SR-1 before the explosion that ripped her away from the life she never earned. She holds these words in the place where there might be a heart, if it's not still buried in the snow on Alchera.

Words like _'be alive with me tonight'_ when he came into her cabin, hating himself for wanting something he didn't think he was allowed to have. Shepard knows that feeling like she knows the weight of her armor, a second skin that's kept in worse things than it's ever shut out.

It's so improbable that she'll get the chance to say something _right_ again—especially to Thane, who says everything with the kind of conviction that _makes_ it right—that she hasn't said much since then, content with listening to him inhale and exhale, loving the raspy quality to it even if that means he's dying. He's going to die anyway, and maybe that's why she was allowed to get it right for once, because God or fate or whatever's left to point a finger at already decided he wouldn't stay.

“Yeah,” says Shepard, trailing her fingers across his ribcage, “I dreamt that this dickhead terrorist brought me back to life so he could jerk me around the universe for awhile until he decided it was time to kill me again. He made a mistake, though.”

“What mistake?” asks Thane.

She kisses his belly and savors the catch in his breath. “He gave me a drell, and now I want to keep it.” She sighs against his skin and mumbles, “I'm gonna have to come back alive now.”

His muscles tense, and he says, “Don't make the mistake of living for me, Shepard. You know I have little time left.”

Shepard looks up at him again, and this time he looks back. She climbs up his body, hovering over him for a moment before planting a kiss on his lips. She says, “I'm gonna live for you 'til the day you die, Thane. Then I'm gonna live for the Reapers. And after that?”

She shrugs lightly, and her eyes hold all the secrets that keep her awake, all the things she'll take to her grave when she finally goes back—and even though she never makes promises, she swears to herself right now that she won't let them wake her up again.

“I'll just... stop.”

 


End file.
